The Theatre of Life, Perumal Murugan’s Memoir as a Window into Tamil Nadu’s Soul
Perumal Murugan’s The Land and the Shadows is no ordinary memoir steeped in nostalgia. It is an incisive study of the land the author comes from, its people, and their love for cinema. In this remarkable book, Murugan describes his boyhood spent working in his father’s soda shop in a small-town theatre in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal district. But the shop and the theatre are not merely settings; they are lenses through which he examines the complex interplay of cinema, caste, land, and patriarchy that has shaped Tamil society.
Inspired by the same setting and characters as his second novel Current Show (1993), the book might come across as a companion piece to long-time readers of Murugan. Read together, they present an invaluable insight into the blurred lines between fiction and non-fiction, how memory shapes us, and the life and experiences of a man whose works have generated as much controversy as acclaim.
Cinema Woven into the Social Fabric
Throughout the book, and particularly in the first half, Murugan talks about how cinema is tied into the fabric of Tamil society through anecdotes and his own analysis of certain phenomena. He often returns to the question of why the late actor-politician MGR is still a powerful presence in certain parts of the state. As another Tamil superstar, Vijay, attempts to follow in the former chief minister’s footsteps, it is worth reading how MGR affected ordinary lives in Tamil Nadu in the 1970s and 1980s.
Murugan’s analysis is not abstract; it is grounded in the lived experience of the audiences who filled the theatres. He understands that for the working class, cinema was not just entertainment but a space of community, belonging, and a much-needed breather from the everyday toll of labour. “I genuinely feel that floor tickets were a liberating experience… The sights and sounds from this area before the show and during intermissions were joyful, arising from a love of the soil,” he writes.
This is not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. Murugan tempers the impulse to see the past through a rose-tinted lens by acknowledging that Tamil society and economy have progressed by leaps and bounds, and he is grateful that the squalor of his growing-up years has vanished. But he also recognises that something was lost in the process—a certain quality of community, a particular way of being together.
Caste, Land, and Patriarchy
Murugan then shines a light on the other aspects that rule his social milieu, particularly in the Kongunadu region (roughly comprising western and north-western Tamil Nadu): caste, land, and patriarchy. These are not abstract categories but lived realities that shape every aspect of life—who one can marry, what work one can do, where one can live.
The book presents an economic history of Tamil Nadu, especially the diversification of caste-based occupations. Murugan comes from a farming caste, but his father starts a soda business and he himself becomes an academic and a writer. Technological advancements and capital accumulation made people less averse to taking risks, resulting in small-scale capitalism in the state’s small towns. This diversification loosened, if not entirely broke, the rigid link between caste and occupation that had defined traditional society.
Yet caste’s hold on other aspects of life—marriage, social status, political power—remains strong. Murugan does not preach about this; he simply shows it through the lives of the people around him, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions.
The Lives Behind the Entertainment Industry
A major chunk of the memoir is spent dissecting the lives and livelihoods that make up the entertainment industry. From tea shop assistants to the audiences who kept theatres running to Tamil cinema stalwarts such as Sivakumar and K. Bhagyaraj, Murugan treats everyone with dignity. Even while discussing public sanitation and a lack of civic sense, he never casts a judgemental eye. Like a true chronicler of the times, his narrative does not ostracise anyone but at the same time acknowledges how “beauty was lost” due to carelessness, ignorance, and lack of crowd management.
This even-handedness is characteristic of Murugan’s approach. He does not romanticise the past nor condemn it. He simply observes, records, and reflects. The result is a portrait that feels true to life in all its complexity.
The Theatre as Cultural Space
The other aspect on which Murugan devotes considerable time is the emergence (and gradual decline) of the cinema hall as a space for cultural and social exchange. He describes the atmosphere of his small-town theatres as full of community and belonging. In an era before multiplexes and streaming services, the cinema hall was where people gathered, where stories were shared, where social bonds were reinforced.
The floor tickets, the cheapest seats, were a “liberating experience” because they made cinema accessible to everyone. The poorest worker could afford to escape into the world of dreams for a few hours. The intermissions were as important as the films themselves—a time for conversation, for gossip, for the simple pleasure of being together.
Today, as multiplexes cater to the affluent and streaming services atomise the viewing experience, something of that communal spirit has been lost. Murugan does not lament this; he simply documents it.
Film Criticism and Analysis
The book is also a collection of essays Murugan has written over the years on various films, personalities, and trends. One of the most interesting is “Should a Reformed Villain Be Allowed to Live?”, in which he probes Kai Kodukkum Kai (“Helping Hand”, 1984), a “flop” Rajinikanth movie directed by J. Mahendran. In contemporary online discourse, the film is often cited as an example of an “underrated” Rajinikanth film that showed him as an “actor” rather than the “Superstar”. Murugan, on the other hand, insists that it was a typical 1980s masala film, and attributes its box-office performance to its failure to deliver within the framework of mass entertainment.
This is a useful corrective to the tendency to retrospectively elevate certain films based on contemporary sensibilities. Murugan reminds us that films must be understood in their context, as products of their time, made for audiences with specific expectations.
A perplexing part of the second part, though, is his lengthy ruminations on Rosappu Ravikkaikari (“The Girl with the Rose-coloured Blouse”; 1979). The book utilises three chapters (and then some) to fully illustrate the importance of the film in his life, and the execution comes across as a little anticlimactic. Murugan presents an exhaustive and interesting study of how the movie deals with the battle between modernity and tradition, and how despite villainising the “modern woman” it still shows that modernity is inevitable. But one can’t help but feel that he described his experiences with other significant films (Kadhalikka Neramillai and Aval Appadithan, to name a few) much more crisply and effectively.
The Anthropological Canvas
Murugan’s minute detailing of his environment makes one wonder just how much of the world we miss out on. As he paints his childhood and adolescence on an anthropological canvas, he leaves his readers with an unusual and deeply affecting memoir that is more about how art shapes both the individual and the society.
This is the book’s greatest achievement. It is not really about Murugan, though he is its subject. It is about the world that made him—the land, the people, the cinema, the small-town theatre where he spent his boyhood. By understanding that world, we understand something about Tamil Nadu, about India, about the forces that shape all of us.
Conclusion: A Life in Cinema
The Land and the Shadows is a testament to the power of place and the enduring influence of early experience. The soda shop in the theatre was not just where Murugan worked; it was where he learned about life. The films he watched were not just entertainment; they were education. The people who came to the theatre were not just customers; they were his community.
Out of this raw material, Murugan has crafted a body of work that speaks to the deepest questions of human existence—love, loss, identity, belonging. His memoir shows us the roots of that work, the soil from which it grew. And in doing so, it reminds us that great art always comes from somewhere specific, from a particular place and time, from the lived experience of a real human being.
Q&A: Unpacking Perumal Murugan’s Memoir
Q1: What is the central theme of Perumal Murugan’s The Land and the Shadows?
The memoir is an incisive study of the land Murugan comes from, its people, and their love for cinema. It explores how cinema is woven into the fabric of Tamil society, while also examining the other forces that shape his social milieu—caste, land, and patriarchy. Through the lens of his boyhood spent working in his father’s soda shop in a small-town theatre, Murugan presents an anthropological portrait of Tamil Nadu’s working class and the cultural significance of cinema halls as spaces of community and belonging.
Q2: How does Murugan analyse the role of cinema in Tamil society?
Murugan examines cinema through both anecdote and analysis. He explores why figures like MGR remain powerful presences in parts of Tamil Nadu, and how films affected ordinary lives in the 1970s and 1980s. He treats everyone involved in the entertainment industry—from tea shop assistants to audiences to film stars—with dignity. He also analyses specific films, such as a Rajinikanth “flop” that is often retrospectively celebrated, insisting that it must be understood in its context as a typical 1980s masala film rather than through contemporary sensibilities.
Q3: What does the book reveal about social and economic change in Tamil Nadu?
The memoir presents an economic history of Tamil Nadu, particularly the diversification of caste-based occupations. Murugan comes from a farming caste, but his father starts a soda business and he becomes an academic and writer. Technological advancements and capital accumulation enabled small-scale capitalism in small towns, loosening the rigid link between caste and occupation. However, Murugan also shows that caste’s hold on marriage, social status, and political power remains strong.
Q4: How does Murugan portray the cinema hall as a cultural space?
Murugan describes small-town theatres as spaces of community, belonging, and escape for the working class. Floor tickets were a “liberating experience” because they made cinema accessible to everyone. The intermissions were as important as the films themselves—times for conversation and social bonding. He traces the gradual decline of this communal experience with the rise of multiplexes and streaming services, documenting what has been lost without lapsing into mere nostalgia.
Q5: What is the book’s broader significance beyond autobiography?
The memoir is more about how art shapes both the individual and society than about Murugan himself. By painting his childhood on an anthropological canvas, he illuminates the world that made him—the land, people, cinema, and small-town theatre. This provides readers with insight into Tamil Nadu, India, and the forces that shape all of us. It shows that great art emerges from specific places and times, from the lived experience of real human beings.
